


Play Dead

by actingwithportals



Series: Broken Shield stories [6]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Explicit Language, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Other, Post-Canon, Wondrous Wanders AU, again Tiso swears like his life fucking depends on it, and apparently so do I, i just love these idiots a lot, kind of hurt/no comfort but there is SOME comfort at the end so don't worry, literally wrote this in like less than two hours, mild thoughts of self-hate?, so apologies if there's some errors in grammar or flow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25889821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actingwithportals/pseuds/actingwithportals
Summary: He hurt them - Tiso was well aware of that. And as much as it hurt him too to see them glare down their nail at him, he could not blame Broken for whatever they chose to do in those next moments.It's not like he deserved their sympathy, after all.
Relationships: Broken Vessel | Lost Kin/Tiso
Series: Broken Shield stories [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795171
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	Play Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I did not wake up this morning with the intention to write some Broken Shield angst but here we are! I should honestly write more Tiso angst in general, because this is too fun.
> 
> Wondrous Wanders AU and all the interpretations of the characters here belong to CosmeerSpots! I am simply a carrier of this message. A vessel, if you will.

Tiso was used to fucking up.

He’d done it before, too many times to count, if he were honest. No doubt that if he survived this somehow, he’d fuck up again. But with the way Broken was standing before him, legs spread in a crouch, nail posed to bite, and wings buzzing in threat, Tiso wasn’t sure surviving would even be an option.

Of course they’d look that way at him; of course they’d be resigned enough to strike. They probably thought he left them, had finally given up and abandoned them for something more exciting, more thrilling, more _certain_.

Because that’s what they feared, wasn’t it? That he didn’t trust in their survivability. That he’d eventually get tired of living with the worry that one bad day could be their last. He’d longed for adventure and glory yet winded up with a void plant monstrosity that could be done in by one false step. Those were some of Broken’s deepest insecurities, right? Even if they hadn’t voiced them, he could see that. He _knew_ that.

And now he’d gone and all but proved them right.

Hah. How fucking worthless of him.

He didn’t fight back, though. Not when Broken lunged at him, not when they swiped his feet from under him and knocked him to the ground, not even when the blunt end of their blade rammed into his side, winding him to the point of near collapse.

No, he wouldn’t raise his weapon against them. He swore to himself he never would, not even after he earned the scars around his throat. Because despite his own fuckups, his own failures, this was still Broken, and that _meant something_.

So he blocked, he dodged, he sidestepped every blow and tanked every hit. Even though he could hear the crowd in the white noise around him booing in disappointment, taunting for a more exciting show, there was no way Tiso would so much as draw a single blade.

Maybe that restraint would be the meagerest apology he could give to them before the end.

Myla was there, too, because of course she would be. He’d abandoned her as well, after all. Her pickaxe was familiar in hand, and even though she didn’t wield it with the same comfortability as a seasoned warrior, she made up for it with her brute strength. She’d always been nearly as strong as him, hadn’t she?

But she kept missing her heaviest blows, and Tiso would have found that unlike her, should have thought that strange, except he was too occupied with Broken to put as much thought into it as he otherwise might. After all, they were the true adversary here, weren’t they? A danger the likes of which this colosseum wouldn’t have seen since Broken’s own sibling had visited its arena.

And they were certainly giving their audience a show.

They’d gone all-out on sparring before, and Tiso had seen from the safe side of a battle just what Broken’s nail and claws could do to enemy combatants. But this was different. This time those claws were reaching for _him_ , and they didn’t hold the same restraint they would in their usual fights, did they?

He got a full taste when the world suddenly began to spin as he was slammed once more into the arena floor, the light of torch flames and lumafly lanterns obscured into a wavering darkness that took over as his head met the earth. _Damn past injuries_.

Broken was on top of him, and he could just make out the familiar sound of their wings buzzing around from seemingly all sides. Tiso tried to crack open an eye, to at least face them with some level of honor before they rightfully tore out his heart, but the world was still too bright, and maybe the buzzing he was hearing wasn’t just that of Broken’s wings.

But he did feel their claws, the way they sunk into his arm harder than they normally would. And when the world shifted just enough for him to know it was changing, he could feel the air chill beside his face as a mask closed in.

Maybe Tiso wasn’t as over the throat incident as he had previously thought, based on the way he flinched with the proximity. Maybe Broken didn’t notice. Maybe they did and just didn’t care.

But nothing sharp or painful came of it. There were no fangs sinking into his shell, nor claws digging into his chest. Just a low whistle and rushed clicks that might’ve meant something once before.

_. . . What?_

Tiso wasn’t given long to think about that before Broken shifted on top of him, the glint of light on their nail just barely visible amidst the still swirling darkness.

He could distantly register Broken’s other hand moving from his arm to curl into his hood, lifting his head and slamming it against the ground once more before the nail above descended in one fluid motion.

It should have hit its mark.

Tiso didn’t feel anything beyond the increased throbbing in his skull.

The weight that had been on top of him shifted once more until it was gone, and Tiso managed to somehow hold onto enough coherence to feel Broken kicking his side, rolling him limply over like nothing more than a silken doll. Something in the white noise roared, several somethings stung against his back like thorns felt through a haze of mist. And just as he thought the darkness would finally claim him into bearable unconsciousness (instead of this horrible nightmare of waking), the ground moved yet again as something with claws much bigger than his own lifted him into the air and gracelessly tossed him over its shoulder.

Faintly, his mind told him it was Broken. But Tiso wasn’t one prone to optimism. Gods knew he wasn’t one deserving of it.

The white noise slowly faded into a low hum, and the distant light that wasn’t yet obscured by the fog dimmed into a cooler hue.

Were they . . . outside?

Tiso wasn’t sure if he finally lost consciousness, or if whoever carried him simply hadn’t walked that far before stopping, the end of their rhythmic steps both jarringly uncomfortable and refreshingly relieving. _Gods, his head hurt._

When the world shifted again, Tiso almost worried he might get sick. But it didn’t move for long, and when it stopped there were arms now wrapped around him, as well as something pressing against the side of his face. Something cold, something familiar. Something _safe_.

Something he didn’t _fucking deserve_.

There was a voice, just behind him, and it didn’t take a fully functioning brain to recognize that it was Myla. Tiso didn’t think he could ever forget her voice, not after hearing it nigh near every damn morning for the past few years (and gods how much he loved that fact). Though he couldn’t make out what she said, the reality that the words were spoken softly, and that they were accompanied by those much larger claws gently caressing his back, were enough to make Tiso grasp tightly onto the first thing his hands could reach, pressing his face against the coldness around him as much as he could without aggravating the throbbing in his head to the point of it becoming unbearable.

Maybe the arms that were holding him shook. Maybe the shaking was just coming entirely from him.

He tried to mumble out something akin to an apology, some pathetic attempt at a coherent string of words that explained his failure, that conveyed his regret at putting them through whatever shit they felt when they noticed he was gone. But he didn’t think the message quite made it through, that the shaking was just too much, and his words too cracked and jumbled.

But the arms didn’t let go, didn’t push or prod or shove him away. Myla’s voice was still there, still talking in that soft and kind way she always did, that somehow always accompanied her fierce swings with an axe more than should be expected or reasonable. The coldness didn’t go away, instead held him all the closer. And when the shaking finally seemed to be ready to subside, the darkness of the world swirling into something more all-encompassing, that coldness still did not lessen its hold.

Unconsciousness, at least, didn’t have to be quite so terrifying this way.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1 Tiso ended up at the Colosseum because he got snatched by the Fools one evening (times are hard with the infection gone, and new promising warriors aren't as easy to come by willingly anymore). He and Broken had been out sparring and Broken went home early while Tiso stayed back to keep working on some new techniques (scenario supplied by the WonWan discord).  
> 2 The past injuries referenced here (back of the head, side, throat) are all canon details in the WonWan AU.  
> 3 The clicking noise Tiso hears from Broken is them using clickcode (morse code language created by Spot) to tell Tiso to "play de[a]d" (credit to Compassion). The second whacking in the head was mostly for them to make sure he went limp just in case the message didn't get across clearly enough (it didn't, obviously).  
> 4 Myla had cooked dinner for all of them that night and she was rightfully fucking pissed when Tiso didn't get to enjoy it.


End file.
